10 days that make the difference - part two

It's St. Patrick's day. Seventh period. I am in a drafting class. I am nervous and watching the clock. At 2:00 o'clock, I go to the bath room. Instead of walking the twenty steps to the left which will take me directly to the bathroom, I walk to the right and down the stairs to the back hall way of my school.

When I get to the bottom, she's there waiting. I wave at her and begin to open a door with a stolen key that is in my possession. I am so nervous that it takes a few tries to get it to work. She doesn't see this as she is still walking over. It finally opens and we walk into an athletic supply closet. It smells like gym class.

We kiss and begin to take off our clothes awkwardly. She lays down. I lay down on top of her and for the first time, I have sex.

Her name is Layla. She's Korean. We would end up meeting in the same spot, every other day for the next two months. We got pretty good at it. But our world was only meant to be in that smelly closet at 2 o'clock. We would never know each other outside of that closet.

That closet and I would get to know several dozen other women over the next two years before it was discovered that I the key and it was taken away from me. It didn't matter, my reputation was established by this point and I had taken my sex life outside of that closet. I missed it's convenience, but I found other places in the school that smelled better and had more sound proofing.

This sounds really stilted, but it's a good memory with very little fan fair. If it hadn't been the first, it wouldn't have been that memorable. Well, if it hadn't been the first and in my school.

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I am sitting in a hospital, bleeding and scared. I'm pretty sure that I have overdosed or that I have been shot. I can't tell anyone my real name or how I got here, and I know that if I don't, they will put my in the lockdown for three days for observation or until I do tell them what they need to know. I have two hundred dollars in twenties in my hand. My ass hurts. I hyperventilate from the fear and pass out.

It was a time of debauchery and limitless opportunity. There was hedonism everywhere and all you had to do was have long hair and you could have as much of it as you wanted. My hair was down to the middle of my back and I was cashing in every chance I could.

I was pretty well known for my exploits and my reputation extended past the walls of my schools. I had been frequenting a home in the rich part of town, that was well known for it's seedy behavior every night of the week. I was there every night, after night, after night. There was always a party going on and I loved parties. I loved damage. I loved finding the edge. I loved new things. I had no reason to go home or a home to go to. School was my only obligation and I was young and sexually active, which trumped all other obligations.

It was the daughter of the home owner that brought me in. She had a thing for me and I could have cared less about her, I just wanted in to that famous den of sin. Her father was the one I needed to know. He was a drug dealer, a smut peddler and an all around cool guy. The fact that his daughter introduced us didn't mean a thing to him. And she soon moved on to some other long haired guy.

Her father and I took to each other right away. He was a business man who knew all the angles and in me, he could see that we were going to make a lot of money. I was so single minded of purpose that I didn't care about the money, I just wanted the sex.

"Sheppard" as I knew him, introduced me to people that wanted to watch me "dance". From there is was people that wanted to "film" me and from there to people that wanted to "date". All of these people were willing to pay me. I was too stupid and too excited to know better. I did it all. This made Shep happy and it kept me in the money that I needed to continue to party.

I was too excited to learn any valuable lessons, the only thing I needed to know was - Money meant success. Success meant that I was popular. Popularity meant more money. My night life lasted so long that I started missing school so I could make it to film shoots, arranged dates and to take extended trips with clients. Money - success - popularity - more money... Who cares, I was getting laid.

Sure, they weren't people that I wanted to sleep with, but they made it possible fore me to sleep with the ones I did want too, so it all worked out.

My evenings became a blur and the days that I didn't work I spent in a parked car with a rich friend of mine taking acid, drinking robotussien and cheap beer, smoking pot and endless amounts of cigarettes and for reasons that I still don't understand to this day, sniffing Vick's Vapor Rub. It was an all-night undertaking and I loved it. This is what I called unwinding from my daily grind.

The night started with a me in Anatomy class. It's was 8 and I needed to get to the shoot by 9. I was a pretty good distance away, so I chose to skip out so I would have time to get high before the shoot.

It was a different director. A different set of actors. A different feel. Sheppard had vouched for them, but I wasn't cool with it. Of course, this is what I do and it is never wrong, so why worry. The first thing to go wrong, the director is walking around with extra money. That never happens. Not unless something really weird is about to go down. Directors are famous for saying, "hey, for some extra cash would you be willing to do.. blah, blah, blah?" You're so high or greedy that you say yes to anything.

There are four other male actors in the room. Three black guys that I have never heard of and some white dudes that look really scared. I assume that this is their first or that they are cops, either way, I don't care. A cop on film is a cop in jail. If it's their first time, big deal. Grow up or get out! I don't have time for whiners in my fantasy world.

There is never a script, just scene descriptions and some pointers. This is supposed to be some simple one-on-ones for compilations. Instead the director thinks we should do something more "creative".

I am driving to my rich friend's house and I can't see. My head is spinning. My pants are wet. I can barely sit and I am 500 dollars richer. The shoot took a lot of weed and a lot of wine to get through. It was rape scenarios and they all got nasty. I was so fucked up, I don't remember what happened or how long it lasted or who was involved.

When I arrive at my friend's house, he sells me what I need and we get to it. In the pitch black of his car, he can see that I am pale and that I don't look right. Never tell someone that is fucked up on drugs that there is something wrong, it will turn on them and make the experience a bad one. Best to keep the status quo and go with the flow.

Neither one of us can drive, but we have to get me to Truman Medical center and see what's wrong with me. It's a long drive and we make it in record time for someone so screwed up behind the wheel. When I get out of the car there is a lot of blood on my pants and my friend sees this and freaks out. He's so scared, that he drives off and leaves me there. When I saw him again, months later, he told me he didn't want anyone to think that he had been the one that had done that to me.

I was torn up pretty badly and I was trying to lie as to who I was and what was wrong with me. I was trying to act sober, which was all but impossible, but I tried. They assumed I had been assaulted and were going to call the cops. I tried to convince them that it was an accident, but nothing I was saying was coming out right. Somehow I told them that things had gotten rough, but it wasn't an assault. It was the first time in my life that I had to be ashamed about something I had done sexually. The first time.

Of course, the examination revealed what was wrong and suddenly no one was too worried about how I had injured myself, it was pretty obvious and it could have been the drugs, or my imagination or it could have happened, but the staff was laughing at me. Laughing at me. Someone who gets paid to fuck for a living. Someone living the dream life that you will never have. How dare you laugh at me!

I had the flu. I was bleeding, but that's because I agreed to do something stupid. It was all the partying, the drugs, and no rest or food that had led me to grow to weak and to sick to fight off a fucking cold.. It didn't matter to me. Two days later I tried to work on another film and was fired. It would be the last time I ever worked on camera. I continued to have dates for a few more years, and I continued to take drugs, but never with the same enthusiasm as the days before the fall.

Sex ceased to be pure. As much as I had done, I had never been ashamed or wrong. Now, I had seen the darker side of sex and I felt dirty and ashamed.